I hate it when that happens...

Spindle turn a pedestal base for it. Turn a 1" tenon to fit the conveniently sized hole fate left you ;-)

The caliper I sent has a depth rod built into it. Try using that, with the lathe stopped, and leave yourself 1/2" of bottom. After you part it off, there'll be a lot less than that. Don't worry about the bowl, there's more where that came from. I'm glad nobody got hurt.

Dave In Fairfax

Great story. I've got a few bowls like that myself. Why not make the hole a bit larger and round it out- turn a contrasting color plug to fit and make it a "feature".

My son isn't into spending shop time with dad anymore. He's doing metal sculpture in school and wants a welder and sand blaster to play with. SIGH. If only I could convince his mother that it's in his best interest to get him those- with the metal lather and mill .

/vic

Your mother (-in law?) has an X-Box?

Where do you live that walnut is so scarce and precious?

Too bad about the bowl. I've had almost exactly the same thing happen, and have a small collection of "coarse collanders" to attest to it.

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

In order to lure my nine year old away from Grandma's house and her X-Box, sounds like one lucky nine year old I had some reservations about letting the boy turn my precious

If only all nine year olds were this lucky in their choice of parents:-)

thats either very generous, or very self serving of you, getting two lathes and having a good rxcuse to do it(joking)

Reyd

Mother. Yeah. She's a real video game junkie. Like I used to be when I was 14 years old. I grew out of it. She grew into it. Go figure.

At this point, bowl blanks are precious because I haven't been able to secure any suitable supplies of turning wood. All wood is precious except for 1-2" maple branches, which I have in copious abundance.

I have a bunch of bowl blanks that Dave in Fairfax kindly sent to tide me over until I get the wood flowing in. Not too many of them are walnut. Walnut is also my absolute favorite wood, so I value it more than the rest of the short supply I have.

Coarse collanders... I like that.

That's a great idea! Good way to use a scrap of 4/4 walnut about 6" long too, now that I think about it.

I'll have to file this trick away.

Silvan wrote: (clip) The up side is that it didn't crack when it hit the wall. It's a beautiful little walnut bowl with a 1" hole in the bottom (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^ I would glue a plaque in the bottom with his name, the words, "My first bowl," and the date. You could use a jam chuck or a "doughnut" chuck to clean up the hole. I would make the plaque out of an attractive contrasting wood, so it doesn't look like an effort to hide a patch. Or, you could go to a trophy shop and have one engraved in brass.

Or, you could turn an insert out of the same wood, and conceal the seam by turning some circles at the edge. In any case, I would not leave this kid with a failure as the result of all that you did together.

Why is that the bottom has to be as thin as possible? I agree that walls should be thin (and even depending on the prupose/not too thin for a food bowl), but leaving the bottom with 1/2 " thickness would not really matter would it?

I usually do this with my large bowls. It gives the bowl two useful characteristics: First, it looks delicate because the rim is so thin. Second, it feels strong, because the total mass is higher than you'd expect from seeing the rim.

But mostly I do it because I need more practice ;-)

It depends on the style of the object and its size. On a 12" bowl,

Because thick walls make the bowl look chunky and unappealing.

Because if they're too heavy they're unwieldy. And ugly.

Good luck!

That's a neat idea. Have him write it with resist ink and etch it onto a brass disc.

We're going to fix the bottom with a pedestal made out of either walnut or maple, depending on what he decides.

Yeah, and to add insult to injury, the dog ate his Pinewood Derby car on the very same day.

Poor little feller... :(

Or, instead of using a matching wood, go with a contrasting wood, say lightly figured maple.

Just a thought

Mike

Definitely

Actually, it sounds like a great day to me...you spent some good time with the kid. THAT in and of itself, has to be worth it!

OK, so you ended up showing the boy that Dad is human after all, but that really isn't all that bad.

Just as long as your wife never finds out you're human, the kid will keep your secret.

Mike

Any excuse I can find to drag him away from that video game for awhile. :)

Taught him some important lessons about failure too, maybe. When the dog eats your car, you get out a block of wood and start over.

That thing might even win this year. It's almost certain to be the only

Dunno - I spent a lot of time fiddling with the body (sleekly areodymnamic) on mine 30 odd years ago, ran it up to maximum weight, and as far as I recall, the winner was an ugly block which perhaps had a lot of extra effort on getting the wheels to spin well.

We were #2, right after the guy who always wins. We still wouldn't have beaten him, but we would have won a few more races if it hadn't been for the pointy rocket nose on the thing. It lost at least two very close heats because the point didn't trigger the electric eye immediately.

I'm satisfied with #2. As far as I'm concerned, we can retire now. Next year's car can be crappy, and let some other kid win a trophy next time.

I don't know if my son will see it that way though. :)